


Friday I'm in Love

by betts



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bottom Steve, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Language Kink, M/M, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:58:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4077001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>barefootbucky:</b> heyyy! sorry it took me so long to reply. hope you got the last few postcards i sent. ok so i’m in istanbul now and there’s a dirt cheap direct flight to dc. thinkin about stopping by for a bit. mind if i crash with you? the road is great and all but i think i need some time to recoup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friday I'm in Love

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is completely self-indulgent.
> 
> Beta'd by the patron saint of everything good in the world, [shiphitsthefan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan).
> 
> I used google translate for the non-English lines. If they're wrong, let me know. You can hover over them to read the translation, or if you're on a device that doesn't allow that, the translations are at the bottom with their corresponding footnotes.
> 
> Title from The Cure's song of the same name.
> 
> See endnotes for trigger warnings.

**Wednesday**

Steve checks his phone. He looks at the time—2:08 p.m.—then clicks through his apps out of habit. He clears his Facebook notifications and reads the same ten posts he’s already read, liked, and commented on. Natasha got a new kitten. Sam Instagrammed his lunch. Clint tried too hard to be witty in a text post, but Steve tossed it a like anyway.

He checks the Mets scores for the hundredth time, the weather, his email, then gets bored and pockets his phone again.

The airport is bustling with activity, but Steve is wandering around near baggage claim, periodically glancing at the arrivals board for Bucky’s flight. It reads ON TIME, but it definitely doesn’t feel that way.

And so what if Steve got there an hour early after a completely sleepless night, followed by a terrible morning run with Sam where he kept tripping on tree roots, followed by breakfast he couldn’t eat, followed by changing his clothes a dozen times before settling on a navy blue henley and jeans?

It’s not like he’s _nervous_ to see his lifelong best friend who has been out of the country for several years. There’s no reason to be _nervous_ about the idea that Bucky’s all worldly now, having been backpacking from continent to continent, most of which has been spent totally out of touch with Steve except for the rare occasion Bucky managed to find wifi in the shantytowns of rural Peru or in the barren tundras of Russia. And it’s definitely not like he’s _nervous_ about the fact that Steve’s university had an actual gym and his doctor told him to start exercising to help with his various health problems, so now he’s about twice the size he was when Bucky left.

He’s definitely not nervous about any of that. He’s just excited, that’s all.

Steve absently takes his phone out of his pocket—2:09 p.m.—and checks Facebook, the Mets scores, the weather, and his email to again find no change in any of them. Then he checks the wifi messaging program he and Bucky have been using instead of SMS and rereads the last handful of messages:

> January 2, 12:53AM
> 
> **barefootbucky:** HAPPY NEW YEAR! idk what time it is there. i’ve been in kathmandu doing some work with a monastery orphanage for a few months. had to trek into the city from the mountains and this clerk’s letting me use his wifi for free. istg these people are the best and the kids are fuckin adorable. i’ll send you a postcard as soon as i find a post office. how’s the job search going?
> 
> January 2, 7:14AM
> 
> **SGRogers704:** Happy New Year to you too. :) I had to Google where Kathmandu was. Landed a government job a couple months back, so I think I’m going to end up staying in DC instead of going home. Speaking of, when are you thinking about coming back to the States?
> 
> May 15, 9:38PM
> 
> **barefootbucky:** heyyy! sorry it took me so long to reply. hope you got the last few postcards i sent. ok so i’m in istanbul now and there’s a dirt cheap direct flight to dc. thinkin about stopping by for a bit. mind if i crash with you? the road is great and all but i think i need some time to recoup.
> 
> May 15, 9:39PM
> 
> **SGRogers704:** Absolutely. I only have a studio so I hope that’s okay. When are you thinking about coming back?
> 
> May 15, 9:42PM
> 
> **barefootbucky:** well right now i’m doing a work exchange at a hostel. i sleep on a bunk in a room with about a dozen other backpackers so a studio with just me and you sounds pretty amazing tbh. i promised them another couple weeks here, so early june maybe? will that be enough time? how long can i stay? don’t want to wear out my welcome.
> 
> May 15, 9:42PM
> 
> **SGRogers704:** Sure thing. Just give me your flight details when you get them and I’ll pick you up. You can stay as long as you like. You’re always welcome.
> 
> May 31, 1:43PM
> 
> **barefootbucky:** dulles, flight UA2148, june 3 @ 3:14pm. good?
> 
> May 31, 1:43PM
> 
> **SGRogers704:** Great. :) I’ll be there. Meet you at baggage claim.

Now it’s June third, mid-afternoon, and with every minute that ticks by, Steve’s heart beats a little faster.

By 3:14, Steve’s phone is down to two percent battery. Bucky’s flight still reads ON TIME, and Steve knows that it’ll take a while for Bucky to get off the plane and make his way through the airport. Knowing Bucky, his seat’s at the back of the plane and he’s probably helping every little old lady with her bags, or chatting up the flight attendants, or actually trying the duty free samples offered to him between the gate and baggage claim.

For as long as Steve’s known him, which is over twenty years now—minus the last five, Steve admits—Bucky’s always lived by his own book. Whereas normally Steve finds it endearing, right now he’s concerned that maybe Bucky missed his flight and has no way of contacting him about it.

Then again, Steve reasons, Bucky’s been traveling solo for half a decade. Surely by now he would have picked up on how to handle these situations. Bucky is resourceful, and moreover, can charm the pants off anyone with his devilish, crooked smile, regardless of language barriers or otherwise. It’s no wonder to Steve that Bucky loves everyone he meets—everyone generally loves Bucky right back.

Especially Steve.

An ear-splitting honking noise emits from the baggage claim and the belt begins revolving. The sign above the terminal reads Bucky’s flight, and he looks around to see a horde of people beginning to crowd around it.

Steve paces through the crowd, looking between and around people for Bucky and then over from where they’d come from. It’s possible he won’t recognize Bucky, or maybe Bucky won’t recognize him. It’s possible Bucky is shopping around or grabbed a bite to eat. It’s possible that Bucky got swept up in another adventure, maybe this time to Athens or Reykjavik or some other city that Steve is vaguely aware of but probably couldn’t accurately point out on a map. It’s possible something happened, maybe—

Steve’s mind grinds to a complete halt when his gaze meets the familiar, sharp gray eyes of his lifelong best friend, walking toward him in a black hoodie, green cargo pants, and a backpack slung over one shoulder.

When Bucky recognizes him, his face lights up into a wide grin, and before Steve knows it, his arms are wrapped around Bucky and Bucky’s arms are wrapped around him and they’re not even saying anything, just holding each other and it’s the most at home Steve has felt since his ma died four years back.

Bucky pulls away and holds Steve at arm’s length. “Damn. Look at you, man. I almost didn’t recognize you. You’re like a goddamn brick wall now.”

Steve wipes his face with the back of his hand, unembarrassed because Bucky’s eyes are a bit shiny and red-rimmed too. He never let himself think about how much he missed Bucky, but God, it’s all flooding back to him now, throbbing in his heart which is hammering against his chest.

Throat tight, he manages to shove Bucky’s shoulder and reply, “Look at yourself. What’s with the hair?”

Bucky’s hair is long and wavy, most of it tied up in a knot at the back of his head, but some strands are astray, falling around his face. He looks like he hasn’t aged a day, except his acne’s cleared up and the barest ounce of pudge he’d left with is completely gone, replaced entirely by a strong, chiseled jaw and what had felt like lean muscle under his baggy hoodie. His shoulders are a bit broader, probably from the constant weight of his pack, but otherwise, he’s still Bucky, and he’s right in front of Steve, in the flesh.

“There’s only two ways to wear it when you’re on the road: shaved or long, and it turns out I got a lumpy fucking head,” Bucky replies, hand still on Steve’s shoulder like he’s worried Steve might run away. He catches sight of something in his peripheral vision and tosses his backpack off his shoulder, then hands it to Steve. “I see my pack. Hold this for me real quick.”

Bucky winds his way through the crowd and Steve watches as Bucky grabs up an enormous green tube. He drops it on the ground and then proceeds to help an elderly couple next to him grab their baggage, then someone else. Then, when the first older woman can’t get her luggage handle to lift, Bucky takes a knee and gets out a Swiss army knife to fix it. It’s probably five solid minutes before Bucky returns to Steve, giant green tube having been unearthed to become a backpack that rises almost a foot above Bucky’s head.

“How much does that thing weigh?” Steve asks. It looks like something Frankenstein would have built if he were a hippie backpacker. It’s patched up in several places, there are sun bleach marks all over it, and a majority of its structure appears to be held together with duct tape.

Bucky somehow manages to defy physics and _literally shrugs_. “The bag check lady weighed it in at sixty kilos.”

“C’mon, Buck, I’m an American.”

“It’s like a hundred and thirty pounds,” Bucky says, side-eyeing him with a smile as they head toward the exit. “How’d you land a government job if you can’t even do basic conversions?”

“Turns out the government’s run by a bunch of Americans too. Who knew?”

“That explains a lot.”

They get to Steve’s car, which, to Steve, is pretty boring, but Bucky whistles when he sees it. “Look at you, driving a grown-up car. What happened to the station wagon?”

Steve opens up the trunk and helps Bucky lower his pack into it. “Broke down a couple years back. I started driving the Harley everywhere, but then work gave me this. I kinda hate it. It feels too...nice.”

Steve closes the trunk and heads to the driver’s seat while Bucky falls into the passenger seat. “Wow, it smells new and everything. And the steering wheel’s on the left!”

“Crazy times we live in,” Steve says as he turns the engine and drives out of the lot.

There’s so much to talk about and so much catching up to do that Steve doesn’t know where to begin. He starts by asking how Bucky’s flight was, and Bucky, being Bucky, launches into an epic tale of airline drama that spans the entire duration of their drive.

It’s exactly like high school, driving around in the heat of summer just to get away for a while, nothing but the noisy engine of Steve’s mom’s old station wagon and Bucky’s excitable flailing over the most mundane things. Steve has always loved the way Bucky sees the world, like everything is the best thing he’s ever seen. But he hadn’t always been that way. When Bucky’s parents died in a car accident when he was thirteen, he’d just been a normal kid. He liked video games and complained about school and got angry at teachers who stifled his natural instincts to be a class clown.

After the initial shock of the death of his parents, though, Bucky changed. Steve watched it unfold firsthand, because Bucky moved in with Steve and his ma. Technically, Bucky “lived” with his uncle, who was an alcoholic night worker and didn’t even have a place for Bucky to sleep. So Bucky stayed with Steve instead, in his room, on his bed, even after they’d outgrown it, because they only had a small two-bedroom apartment. The school didn’t take notice and the state didn’t either. Steve’s ma was happy as long as Steve was happy, and Steve was very happy living with Bucky, even when Bucky stole all the blankets.

Most people, when encountering that kind of tragedy at such a young age, would have probably spiraled into depression or addiction. Bucky, being the polar opposite of most people, launched himself to the opposite end of the spectrum. He was happy all the time, a bouncing ball of excitable energy with no focus or direction.

Bucky periodically interrupts his story to point at buildings that they pass and say things like, _“I forgot that was a thing!”_ or, _“Can we go there sometime?”_

“I haven’t been to DC since our class trip in eighth grade. You remember that?” Bucky asks as they pass the Smithsonian.

“Barely,” Steve replies, and Bucky proceeds to interrupt their multi-layered conversation by continuing his airline drama, which apparently involved a baby who ended up on Bucky’s lap while her mother managed her own motion sickness.

Bucky is still talking a mile a minute when Steve parks and leads him up three stories to his apartment. When he unlocks it and drops his keys on the counter, Bucky interrupts himself yet again by looking around and saying, “Whoa. This isn’t at all what I imagined when you said you had a studio. What the hell kind of government job do you _have?_ ”

Steve shrugs. “Can’t say exactly. This is the building most of my coworkers live in, so I got the cheapest one of them.”

Bucky drops his pack and it reverberates the floorboards with an echoing _thunk_. “‘Can’t say’? Are you a fucking _spy_ or some shit?” He walks to the floor-to-ceiling loft-style windows and looks out at the DC landscape below.

“Maybe,” Steve says, leaning against the breakfast nook with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Bucky amble around like a puppy getting used to its new home.

Bucky levels a glare at him. “Bookmark that topic. We’ll come back to it once I get you drunk. Where the hell’s all the furniture? Did you just move in?”

Steve looks around, trying to see his apartment from someone else’s eyes. His mattress is on the ground near the wall with his ma’s quilt draped over it. A plastic crate sits beside it, filled with books and a small lamp on top. His laptop is on the quilt, and he has an easel with a blank canvas on it angled toward the windows. Another crate holds his art supplies, and he isn’t sure exactly what else he needs.

“Six months ago, about,” Steve replies. “I mean, I’m not here all that often anyway.”

“Is this, like, your reaction to the hoarder thing?” Bucky asks, sitting down in front of his pack and unzipping it.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Steve says, and adds, “You hungry?” as he rounds the breakfast nook into the stainless steel-themed kitchen.

“Don’t change the subject,” Bucky replies, rifling through his belongings.

“Why not? You always do.”

Then, to prove Steve’s point, Bucky says, “You got any tea?”

“Who the hell drinks tea?”

“The entire _world_ , Steve.”

“Well I don’t. I have coffee. And a Keurig.”

Bucky sighs. “Coffee works. _Anyway_ , I was expecting more of your ma’s stuff around I guess.”

Steve’s jaw clenches as he drops the pod into the machine. “Got rid of it.”

“All of it? She had, like, a ton of stuff.”

“I know,” Steve replies quietly, slotting the coffee cup under the spout and hitting a button. “I couldn’t go through it all.” He bites his tongue to keep from adding _by myself_ and says instead, “So I put it in an estate sale and moved to DC.”

The silence in the room is palpable, and Steve watches the red blinking light of the coffee machine while he tries to get a handle on his emotional whiplash. Bucky’s right; Steve’s ma had been a hoarder, and Steve grew up fixing hardboiled eggs on a stove where only one burner was ever free, then eating them at the kitchen table where only one chair and a one-square-foot space was available at any given time. That might have been why it had been so easy to live with Bucky for four years; neither Steve or his ma had a particularly accurate sense of space or belonging. Bucky never seemed to mind it, though. He was at home wherever his feet took him.

Steve doesn’t register Bucky’s presence until Bucky’s arms are wrapped around his middle and his chin is resting on his shoulder, his chest to Steve’s back.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says softly. “I’m tired, and I’m happy to see you, and I’m not thinking straight.”

Steve’s eyes flutter shut and he holds Bucky’s arms to him tighter. He’d forgotten about this, the probably-not-entirely-platonic touching, and he’s glad he did, because his heart aches with a familiar feeling that’d been dormant for too many years. His muscles relax as he leans his head back on Bucky’s shoulder.

Looking at Bucky had always been like looking in a mirror; Bucky’s body was an extension of Steve’s and vice versa. They fell asleep in each other’s arms every night on the small twin mattress that had to fit two teenage boys, and woke up together with limbs entangled every morning. They never talked about it. They never had to.

But then Bucky left.

And Steve’s mother passed away.

And for the first time, Steve is realizing that he went with them, now more a shell of a person who works sixty hours a week and paints portraits of the people he loves from memory alone because he never kept any other trace of them.

“Hey,” Bucky says, face buried in the crook of Steve’s neck; not kissing, even though it’d be the easiest thing in the world to do. That’s where the line is, Steve guesses, because it’s one they haven’t crossed before, just casually danced around like it was never even an option. “You’re right, I could use a bite to eat. What’ve you got?”

“Burgers,” Steve says.

Bucky laughs against Steve’s skin and replies, “I haven’t had a burger in _years_.”

So Steve takes a deep breath; it feels like the first real one one he’s taken since Bucky left, and he reluctantly lets go of him to put some food together.

Bucky hops onto the counter and drinks his sugar with a little bit of coffee while Steve cooks, explaining that the last burger he ate was at this shit-in-the-wall joint while he was totally trashed in a city called Mira Flores outside of Lima.

The story quickly derails into several adventures with a man named Rodrigo. Other characters include Rodrigo’s friend Andres, and a German woman named Helen with whom Bucky spent several months.

Once the burgers are done, they sit across from each other at a random spot in front of the windows, cross-legged on the hardwood floor. Bucky’s got most of his burger finished when he shakes his head and says, “South America, man. The whole continent’s just unreal. You can spend a year there for a couple hundred bucks, party non-stop, and eat some of the best food in the world.”

Steve’s been listening, enrapt in Bucky’s stories, at peace despite the emotional tidal waves periodically washing over him when he remembers that Bucky is _here_.

“But nothing beats a good old American cheeseburger,” Bucky says around a bite of it. “Thanks for the food. And letting me crash.”

Steve shrugs. _“Mi casa, su casa.”_

 _“Este lugar no es mi hogar, tú eres mi hogar,_ ”1 Bucky replies. 

Steve stares at him. “I don’t actually know Spanish.”

Bucky’s lips twitch up into a smile as he says, “I know.”

“What’d you say?”

Bucky shrugs. “Nothing you don’t already know.”

After dinner is done, Steve does the dishes, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Bucky undressing in front of his pack. He grips the back of his hoodie and slides it off his torso to reveal a threadbare gray t-shirt. He kicks off his pants and tosses them on his pile of stuff, then follows with the shirt and—

Yeah, Bucky is definitely a lot bigger than when he left. He’s almost as big as Steve. His skin is tanned so dark that freckles stand out on his shoulders, and the lines of his back are made up of corded muscle. He’s left in nothing but a pair of tight black briefs and it’s been so fucking long since Steve looked at him like this, since he’s looked at _anyone_ like this.

It’s always been confusing for Steve, because it’s sexual, but it’s not; it’s romantic, but it’s not. There just aren’t any words to describe the way he sees Bucky, like the first time Steve ever went to an art museum and learned about Monet and Rembrandt and Dali. He was just a kid, but he wanted to cry; the way he saw the world was finally reflected in front of him, plain as day, and he knew he wasn’t alone.

It’s not that Bucky is _more_ beautiful than he was when he left, it’s just that Bucky _is_ beautiful, period. He’s art as a human being, and Steve can’t fathom ever letting him go again.

Bucky turns around to find Steve staring at him, but he doesn’t even acknowledge it, because staring at Bucky has always been one of Steve’s bad habits. Steve used to draw Bucky as he slept, when he was bored in class, while Bucky played video games. Whenever he had paper and pen on him and Bucky was occupied elsewhere, Steve was occupied with Bucky.

Bucky takes a running leap and lands on the mattress so that it skids across the floor and hits the wall.

“I take it all back,” Bucky says, muffled in the pillow. “Not having furniture is a great idea.”

By the time Steve’s finished with the dishes, Bucky is snoring softly and the sun is beginning to set. Steve takes off his jeans and shirt and sits on the ground a few feet away from Bucky’s sleeping form, his sketchpad in his lap and a box of pastels beside him.

He draws Bucky on his stomach, hair splayed over his face and the pillow underneath him, tan skin and muscular body. Steve has drawn Bucky a thousand times since he left, but never like this, the new Bucky who smells like incense and combs his fingers through his hair to keep it out of his face.

Steve quickly colors the way the setting sun casts pinks and oranges over Bucky’s body, the way his mother’s quilt tangles itself around his legs. He drags a pastel across the paper to create the drastic slope of Bucky’s lower back and the swell of his upper lip. He draws the shadows under Bucky’s eyes and every knuckle of the hand hanging off the bed, but he can’t pick up all the details; the way Bucky’s eyes flutter under his eyelids, how his chest swells with his breath, how a soft noise escapes his lips with every exhale.

Once the sun sets, Steve puts his art supplies away and washes his hands, then climbs into bed next to Bucky with his laptop and a pair of headphones.

He’s been watching Netflix for a grand total of ten minutes when Bucky shifts and curls his body around Steve, face pressed against his shoulder as he mumbles, “‘s bright.”

“You want me to turn it off?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods and pulls himself closer. Steve shuts his laptop and sets it aside before inching his way down the mattress underneath the covers. Their legs immediately tangle together and Bucky presses his forehead against Steve’s chest, muttering, “Missed this. Missed you.”

“I did too,” Steve whispers, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

Bucky’s breathing grows deep and even within moments, but it takes Steve much longer to fall asleep.

* * *

 

**Thursday**

Steve wakes up alone in his bed to the sound of movement in his apartment and the smell of frying bacon. In his sleep-sodden haze, he assumes his ma is fixing breakfast down the hall, and Bucky, always the early riser, is probably sitting at the table with his knees to his chest talking to her. Bucky and Steve’s mother always had a strange relationship that Steve never understood. She told Bucky things she’d never tell Steve, and Bucky hung on her every word. He looked at her and treated her like a queen, the way Steve should have treated her but never did, because he could never get the same perspective that Bucky had, the same reverence toward everyone and everything.

It takes Steve a handful of seconds to realize he’s in his own apartment, and the smell of frying bacon is coming from his kitchen. He opens his eyes to find his laptop gone, the windows fogged over with morning dew.

He sits up in bed and sees Bucky in front of the stove, wet hair slicked back, wearing one of Steve’s black t-shirts and a pair of his jeans that are too loose and ride low on his hips. Steve’s laptop is open on the nook behind him while he flips pancakes in the air.

It hits Steve then, like a baseball bat to the head. Bucky is really here, in his kitchen, wearing his clothes, cooking his food. He’s not on the other side of the planet hiking through the Himalayas. Steve doesn’t have to wake up with the empty hope that today will be the day Bucky contacts him again. The permanent knot of worry that’s been in Steve’s chest for five years is no longer there because it doesn’t need to be.

Bucky is _here._

Steve stands up from the bed and pads over to Bucky before he can put more batter in the pan. He turns when he hears Steve moving around, grin on his face, and opens his mouth to say something when Steve pulls him into a hug and buries his face in his shoulder and tears sting his vision because he’s been empty for so long and now he isn’t anymore.

He thinks Bucky might push him away, make some crass joke like he does and change the subject. Instead, he grips Steve in his arms, one hand on his back and the other threaded through his hair, and whispers, “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” over and over again until a lump rises in Steve’s throat and threatens to crash into a sob. He pulls away and looks at Bucky, who's bereft of his usual million layers, just a kid without a foundation underneath him, and Steve wants to forgive him, but they’re not there yet.

Steve turns away to take a shower, and by the time he gets out, Bucky has breakfast ready with two steaming hot cups of coffee.

When Steve takes a seat, he doesn’t have to worry about heavy silences, because Bucky jumps right in. “You know, breakfast was my favorite thing about every place I went. Coffee versus tea versus juice. Meats versus fruits versus breads. Lunch and dinner had so much variation, but breakfast...breakfast told me a lot about a culture.” He points at Steve with a piece of bacon while he talks, and Steve listens in silence, still unable to talk.

It feels like when his ma first passed away, and he kept seeing her face everywhere, like she was always at his peripheral vision, just out of reach. He would dream about her coming back to him, like she went on a trip. Sometimes Steve still feels that way, still picks up his phone on occasion to call her and tell her important events in his life, like she’s on the other end of some kind of afterlife hotline.

Bucky’s departure felt the same way. Even if Bucky hadn’t died, it felt like the relationship between them did, and it left Steve with as much a sense of loss as the death of his mother.

But unlike his ma, Bucky really was back, and it’s like nothing has changed after all, like their relationship had just been on pause and now everything is normal again.

It’s too damn good to be true.

Which, Steve reasons, means it probably is.

“Don’t you have work?” Bucky asks.

Steve manages to find his voice again and says, “No, I took yesterday and today off.” He waits for Bucky to launch into another story or maybe hound Steve about being a spy, but when he doesn’t, Steve asks, “What’s the plan for today?”

Bucky stares at him for a long moment before replying, “ _Aimer chaque partie de ton corps avec ma langue._ ”2

“I don’t speak French either.”

“Oh, right. _Ich möchte jeden Augenblick meines Lebens mit dir verbringen.” 3_ 

“Jesus, how many languages do you know?”

Bucky shrugs. “I pick them up easy. I can have a conversation in, like, twelve languages, I think? I’m probably only fluent in English and Spanish though.”

“Okay, so _in English_ , what do you want to do today?”

“In all honesty, I think I really just need some time to chill. Can we shotgun Netflix all day?”

So Steve introduces Bucky to _Breaking Bad_ and they proceed to spend all day in bed, laptop on the floor in front of them, dishes from breakfast abandoned in the kitchen. They start off fully clothed, Steve with his head propped up on one hand and Bucky in front of him, Steve’s arm draped over his stomach.

Periodically, Steve breathes in and revels in the fact that Bucky smells like him and is wearing his clothes and is lying in his bed, and his heart is so full it might burst.

A few hours later, Steve fixes them a couple sandwiches and Bucky finally asks Steve about what’s been going on in his life. He’s shy about it when he does, shuffling around the potato chips on his plate like he’s nervous to ask. And Steve doesn’t blame him, because they still haven’t talked about the death of Steve’s mother. Bucky knows virtually nothing about it except that it happened, and Steve has no idea how he must have taken the news, because Bucky had been close with her too.

“So what’d you end up getting your degree in again?” Bucky finally asks. “Congrats, by the way.”

“Thanks. And thanks for the card you sent, too. I have a BFA in drawing and a BA in history.”

“You double-majored? How’d you manage that?”

Steve shrugs and picks at a piece of lettuce on his plate. “Didn’t sleep a whole lot. Worked a handful of jobs. Kept to myself.”

He can feel Bucky eyeing him suspiciously. “So you didn’t make any friends while I’ve been gone?”

“No.  I mean, yeah,” Steve says, “I made a few friends at work. I’m sure they’ve been texting me like crazy, but my phone’s on emergency only mode.”

When Bucky doesn’t reply, Steve looks up to see him grinning. “Why would they be texting you like crazy, Steve?”

Steve huffs a nervous laugh. “I might have told them that my best friend was coming home after being gone for a long time and they might be a bit...curious about you.”

“Why’s that?” Bucky asks, brow furrowed in faux-ignorance.

Steve throws a potato chip at him. “Because no one can list the most basic facts about Bucky Barnes without sounding absolutely ridiculous. ‘Oh, Bucky’s been backpacking around the entire world for five years.’ ‘How does he afford it?’ they ask, and I say, ‘No fucking clue actually.’”

Bucky picks up the chip and eats it. “Despite popular belief, travel is cheap. Vacation is what’s expensive. Pick a random point on a map, pack up your stuff, and go there. Most people will feed you and house you in exchange for work. The only things that end up costing money are getting from point A to point B and buying visas once you get there.”

“And your parents’ life insurance money kept you afloat for five years?” Steve asks. He remembers when Bucky decided to leave, he refused to ask about it. He refused to acknowledge it was even happening. He ignored that Bucky was leaving until the day Bucky actually left, and when Steve watched him get in the security checkpoint line at LaGuardia with nothing but a duffel bag and the same backpack he carried to school every day, it didn’t feel like he’d be saying goodbye for five whole years.

“And the money I saved up before I left,” Bucky replies. He’d been working for as long as Steve could remember; picked up a paper route when they were twelve, utilized those early hours where he was awake before everyone else. He worked at a snow cone shack in the summers too, then an ice cream shop on the weekends. Bucky was the only kid Steve knew who managed to skirt child labor laws and work full time by the age of fifteen. He had so much energy but zero interest in school extracurriculars.

 _“I’m gonna see the world someday,”_ Bucky always said. _“Joining drama club or the track team isn’t gonna help me see the world.”_

“I had about ten thousand by the time I left, I think,” Bucky continues. “I went to Europe first. England, because I wanted to see if I could even make it on my own. Then I found out England was really fucking expensive. France, too. Then Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Greece, Rome, Germany, not in that order but you get the point. I spent three thousand dollars that first year. Then I ran into Helen in Germany, though, and she was on her way to South America to teach English, so I dropped another thousand to follow her, but then I only spent maybe two hundred dollars that entire year because we had a long-term teaching gig. She taught me most of what I know.”

Steve wants to ask if they were together, but instead he asks, “Where is she now?”

“Antarctic expedition. We parted ways in Bolivia and I hung out in Argentina for a while, then hopped on a flight from Chile to New Zealand. Spent a half a year there and then a half a year in Australia before making it to Indonesia, then Vietnam, Thailand, et cetera.”

“Do you have any money left?” Steve asks. He almost wants the answer to be no, because then Bucky can’t leave again for a while.

“Plenty,” Bucky replies, and leaves it at that.

Steve’s heart sinks.

They get back to watching _Breaking Bad_ for a few hours, then end up going on a pizza and beer run when it starts to get dark. By the time they’re midway through season two—positions switched so that Bucky’s the big spoon now—Steve is a little tipsy and a lot happy, but he’s tired of the rivets of his jeans digging into his skin, so he strips down to his boxers.

Bucky watches him as he shifts in the bed, and in Steve’s drunkenly wishful thinking, it seems like Bucky’s giving him a _look_ , like his eyes darken and maybe trail down Steve’s body in something akin to appraisal.

Then Bucky gets undressed too, and Steve covers them back up with the blanket because his air conditioning makes the room chilly, but Bucky’s skin is soft and warm against his.

Somewhere into their second six-pack and nearing the end of season two, Steve’s starting to doze in and out. Bucky’s leg is slotted between his and he’s relaxed and comfortable and drifting off, thinking about the feel of Bucky’s skin, what his lips would taste like, the kind of hitched little noises he’d make…

Bucky trails his hand up and down Steve's side, a gentle slide of his fingertips that gives Steve chills. Steve lets out an involuntary moan of an exhale, then bites his lip between his teeth as he shifts closer to Bucky.

Steve can feel Bucky's breath on his skin, and then the soft press of his lips against it, not a kiss, but resting at the nape of his neck, breathing him like Steve is all the air he needs.

Bucky teases his fingers over Steve's hipbone, back and forth under the elastic of his boxers. It leaves Steve half-hard and makes him push backward into Bucky, who grips Steve's hip in response and grinds against him. Steve can feel the long, hard line of his cock against his ass, and Bucky slides his fingers further down until he's grazing the base of Steve's dick.

There are too many lines crossed and not enough words spoken, but when Bucky lets out a soft moan against Steve's neck and begins peppering his shoulder with kisses, it's game over.

Steve turns on his other side so that he's facing Bucky, and slides a thigh up to Bucky's hip. Bucky shifts his leg between Steve's and their cocks drag against each other, throbbing-hard and straining against fabric, but the friction leaves Steve breathless.

Eyes closed, foreheads touching, breathing heavy, they move together, a slow rhythm of hips grinding and it feels so good that Steve can feel the build-up already at the base of his spine. Bucky's hand is tangled in Steve's hair and eventually Steve's boxers slip down so that it's skin on skin and everything is amplified.

Bucky is so easy to touch that it's hardly different than touching himself, like nights where Steve wakes up to find his erection pressing against the mattress with dreams of Bucky slipping slowly out of his mind. Then he comes all over his hand with Bucky's name on his lips and falls back asleep before the realization hits that Bucky isn't around anymore.

But now he is and it feels like the first drink of water after a lifetime of thirst, ice cold and running down his throat. He clenches his teeth to keep the build-up at bay, hovering at the edge.

They slide against each other, slick with come and sweat, lips barely an inch apart but not kissing, just breathing each other's air. Bucky's making the hitched little noises from Steve's dreams, desperate and low and just a bit broken.

They move with the rhythm of their hearts which are beating in time with one another, and Steve thinks that maybe they just share the same one.

The thought pushes Steve over the edge as he grips Bucky's back and loses control of his movements, warm wetness coating their stomachs and making Bucky slide against him faster. Bucky’s breath stops and he stills, and Steve can feel the throb of his cock against his hip as it releases, mingling with his own. Steve lowers his lips and presses open-mouthed kisses against the jut of Bucky's jaw while exhaled moans of satisfaction escape Bucky's lips.

Bucky trails his hands up and down Steve's back, neither of them daring to move apart, and Steve quickly succumbs to the dark pull of sleep.

* * *

 

**Friday**

Steve's alarm goes off at obnoxious o'clock. He and Bucky are still curled up together in the exact position they fell asleep, and kind of adhered to each other too.

Steve reaches under his pillow to turn off his alarm and proceeds to detangle his limbs from Bucky's. Bucky can and has slept through earthquakes, so he doesn't wake when Steve rolls away from him. He does, however, make a pitiful noise in his throat and his nose wrinkles in distaste as he moves forward trying to find Steve again.

It takes every ounce of Steve's willpower to get out of bed, but it's worth it when Bucky rolls on his stomach and tucks his arms under the pillow. His briefs are bunched up around his thighs, revealing the dimples at the small of his back and the perfect swell of his ass. Steve is overcome with the simultaneous desire to sink his teeth into it and draw it, but he only has time for one of them.

He grabs up his sketchbook, and by the dim light of early morning, does a rough drawing in charcoal, all soft edges and minimal shading while he tries hard not to think about eating Bucky out before going to work.

He glances up at the clock on the wall and realizes he's running late, so he closes his sketchbook to hop in the shower.

By the time he’s ready for work, Bucky’s still sound asleep, exactly as Steve left him. Steve stares at him a long moment before reluctantly sneaking out of the apartment.

It’s a long, boring day at work that involves a lot of paperwork from a case they closed last week. Natasha, his partner, only asks him once about Bucky and spends the rest of the day showing him pictures of her new kitten, whom she named Peaches.

He goes to lunch with Clint, Sam, and Natasha, who begin grilling him about Bucky, especially when he starts noticeably blushing about it. They rag on him until he finally says, “You’re all five year olds and it’s none of your business.”

“Alright, man, whatever you say. Just be sure to invite us to the wedding,” Sam says, and Natasha changes the subject back to Peaches.

By 5:18, Steve is climbing up the stairs to his apartment and loosening his tie. He finds his front door already unlocked and walks in to see...stuff.

A lot of stuff.

There’s a hideous floral couch against one wall, a box with a fifty-five inch TV in it, and other assorted boxes labeled with Swedish words.

Sitting in the middle of all of it, putting together what looks like a bed frame, is Bucky. He’s wearing another of Steve’s outfits, barefoot and cross-legged with his hair in a ponytail, listening to Spotify on Steve’s open laptop.

“What the hell are you doing?” Steve asks.

Bucky looks up and grins at him. “Okay, so, crazy story. I walked to a thrift store down the street—”

Steve interrupts, “The nearest thrift store is seven miles away.”

“That sounds about right,” Bucky replies. “Anyway, I was just looking for some clothes because my stuff is all falling apart and I figure I can’t just keep wearing your clothes—not that there’s anything wrong with your clothes, but you do have _a lot_ of blue, like, _a lot_ _—_ but then I found ol’ Bessie here…” He gestures to the couch. “...and thought she’d jive really well with your apartment.”

Steve blinks at him. ‘Bessie’ is pink. And green. It looks like someone vomited and turned the result into upholstery. “So what about the rest of it?”

Bucky stands, eyes still alight with excitement. “Here’s the cool part. So I run into this guy who’s scouring the back of the thrift store for parts. Name’s Tony. Real weird guy. He was just...wearing a welding mask. In the store, like he forgot he had it on. Anyway, I ask him what his deal is and he said he’s working on building a machine, which is where I decided to stop asking questions. But then he said what he really needed to do was to go to IKEA. And I said I could stand a trip to IKEA, to which he promptly _invited me to IKEA._ He had a truck, too, so I bought Bessie and we hauled it out together. Then I bought some stuff for your place and he helped me get it up here too. I got his business card.” He pulls a hemp wallet out of his (Steve’s) back pocket and passes the card over. “He told me to call him if I needed help assembling anything.”

The card reads, _Tony Stark, President, Stark Industries._

“You took a trip to IKEA with Tony Stark,” Steve says.

“Yep,” Bucky replies. His smile wavers when he sees Steve’s expression, which is somewhere between disbelief and outrage. “Why? You know him?”

“Stark Industries is one of the largest companies in the entire world.”

“For real? Neat,” Bucky says, and starts to take the tape off the TV box.

Steve looks around at the piled-high boxes and his heart starts to pound in his chest, which feels like it tightens around his lungs so that he can’t breathe. His vision narrows like he’s looking through a tube and suddenly Bucky’s hand is on his arm, steadying him.

“Steve?” he asks. “You okay?”

Bucky maneuvers him to sit down on the couch, which is good because Steve wasn’t sure he could keep standing.

Steve leans forward, elbows on his knees, and buries his face in his hands. “I don’t want all this stuff, Buck. I don’t like _stuff_. I like being able to count the things I own on my fingers and toes.”

“I mean, I do too. I’ve been living that way for half a damn decade. I just thought—”

Steve sits back up to glare at him, “You thought what, Bucky? That you could just walk out of my life for five years and then walk right back in and pretend nothing’s changed?”

“Well that escalated quickly. But, I mean...yeah.”

Words begin flooding out of Steve’s mouth without his control; five years of unacknowledged resentment bottled up, and the Mentos are finally being dropped in. “Maybe that would have been true if Ma were still alive, but she’s not. She was your family too and you weren’t there for either of us when you needed to be, when we were there for you, and now you’re here and trying to build a home with me when you abandoned the one we had. That’s not how it works, Buck.”

Bucky’s silent for a long moment before he asks, quietly, “So what do I do then?”

Steve reaches into his pocket and pulls out his keys. He slips the key to his motorcycle off the ring and shoves it in Bucky’s palm. “Just do what you’re gonna do already. Take the Harley and go on your great American road trip like I know you’re going to eventually.”

Bucky grips the key in his hand and looks at his balled up fist. “That’s not what I was planning.”

“Don’t lie to me. The only goddamn book you took with you when you left was _On the Road_. Just take the bike and leave so I can get over the fact you were ever here.”

“That’s not what I want,” Bucky says with a small shake of his head. “Is that what you want?”

“I’d rather get it over with, yeah.” Steve stands to take a shower and hope that Bucky is gone by the time he gets out.

But Bucky pulls him by the elbow and says, “Just listen—”

“No,” Steve replies, “for once, you listen. I want you in my life more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I can’t handle a few weeks of playing house if you’re just going to leave again. I’m not going to keep a home for you to randomly come back to on a whim, and you can’t ask it of me, either.”

In reply, Bucky takes his wallet out again and pulls something out of it, then holds it up in front of Steve’s face. It’s a picture of Steve, age seventeen, all skinny and dorky-looking, but the edges of the picture are bent and tattered. “I showed this picture to _every single person_ I talked to for more than a couple minutes. Hell, I showed it to Tony today. I asked hundreds of people if they had a word in their language for what you are to me. None of them were quite right. You’re not my best friend, you’re not my brother, you’re not my boyfriend.”

Steve is frozen to the spot, searching Bucky’s eyes for an answer. “So what am I then?”

Bucky steps closer to him, trails his hand down Steve’s arm until their fingers are entwined together. “I traveled the whole world trying to figure out where I belonged, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that I belong with you. You’re my home.”

Steve’s breath catches in his throat. Their lips are an inch apart when Bucky lets his eyes flicker down to Steve’s lips, and whispers, “ _Non ho mai voglia di lasciare il vostro lato._ ”4 

Steve is about to tell Bucky he doesn’t speak Italian, but Bucky closes the gap between them and slots their lips together. He slides his hand up so that it’s cupping Steve’s chin and _God,_ Bucky tastes exactly like Steve’s always imagined. His lips are soft and firm, and they open so he can slide his tongue inside, deepen the kiss until Steve’s completely melted against him.

Bucky pulls back to whisper, _“Te-am iubit de când ne-am întâlnit.”_ 5 

Steve pulls Bucky back to him and mumbles onto his lips, “I’m gonna need to hire an interpretor.”

They make quick work of undressing each other, and tumble onto the mattress which is surrounded by boxes so that it feels like they’re in their own little world. It’s how it felt when they lived with Steve’s mother. As suffocating as the piles of stuff were, they were insulating too.

Steve can’t manage to leave Bucky’s lips for more than brief moments of time before pulling him back from wherever his mouth had wandered: to Steve’s throat, trailing down to wrap around a nipple, trailing down further to lick a stripe up Steve’s cock. He murmurs, _“Eu quero conhecer sua pele.”_ 6  and Steve pulls him right back up again to kiss his cocky grin away.

They kiss and kiss and kiss for what feels like hours, naked and rolling around the sheets until the sun begins to set.

Bucky pulls away from Steve with a gasp.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks.

Steve had been expecting Bucky to finally come to his senses, take the Harley and run, but instead, his eyes go wide and he says, “We should build a fort.”

Steve nods. “We should absolutely build a fort.”

They maneuver the boxes around the mattress and cover it with blankets before climbing in and getting right back to where they left off.

“Please tell me lube and condoms are on your list of things you count on your fingers and toes,” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s throat.

Steve nods, and reaches under the fort to grab some out of the crate he keeps by his bed.

“Thank _God_ ,” Bucky says, and opens Steve up slowly, one finger and then a second and third, until Steve is writhing and begging for Bucky to fuck him.

Bucky presses a kiss to the inside of Steve’s knee and says, “Never took you for a dirty talker.”

“Didn’t take me for a spy either,” Steve replies, voice straining. “Just fuck me.”

“So you _are_ a spy,” Bucky says in awe.

“Mayb—” Steve swallows the rest of the word as Bucky presses his fingers upward.

Bucky finally finishes torturing Steve and slides into him in one easy movement. For the first time since Bucky left, everything feels right in the world. Steve is full and complete and inside a fucking blanket fort that’s lit with the waning sunlight, and if he weren’t too busy getting fucked senseless, he’d probably want to draw it.

Steve may have a dirty mouth, but Bucky has a dirty mouth in twelve languages, and he uses all of them as he fucks into Steve with a steady rhythm, curses and poems and prayers Steve can’t understand spoken against his skin.

Bucky maps Steve’s body like it’s the only world he needs, and Steve finally believes him, finally knows he’s going to stay for good.

Steve doesn’t know the languages Bucky is speaking, but he knows what Bucky is saying, over and over again like a chant. _I love you, I love you, I love you._

With Bucky’s hand wrapped around him, Steve comes with a cry, Bucky’s name escaping his lips. Bucky comes immediately after with nothing but a low groan, all his words already spent, and they collapse in a heap of sweaty limbs and breathless panting.

Foreheads pressed together, Bucky whispers, “I’m sorry I didn’t come back when your ma died.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, running a thumb over Bucky’s bottom lip. “You’re here now.”

“I’m not gonna leave again, I promise.”

“What is it you want to do?”

“Other than this?” Bucky says with a smile, and kisses Steve again.

Steve huffs a laugh and kisses him back. “Other than this.”

Bucky shrugs. “School, maybe. Or I’ll call up my good pal Tony Stark and see if he has a job for me.”

“You’re not going to miss being on the road?”

“I am. I do. But every road ends somewhere. I’m just lucky mine ended with you.”

Steve has no response to that but to kiss Bucky again. After a long while, Steve pulls away and says, “We’re getting rid of Bessie though.”

Bucky gasps like Steve struck him. “Bessie’s part of the family now. We can’t abandon her.” Steve scowls, and Bucky adds, “Plus, no returns.”

“Fine,” Steve relents, and pulls Bucky back to him. The last of the sunlight dips below the horizon, and Steve breathes a sigh of contentment at the knowledge that they’re both finally home.

* * *

 Footnotes:

1\. This place is not my home, you are my home.  
2\. Love every part of your body with my tongue.  
3\. I want to spend every moment of my life with you.  
4\. I never want to leave your side.  
5\. I have loved you since we met.  
6\. I want to know your skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for alcohol use, mentions of hoarding, anxiety attacks, and sex that is not explicitly discussed beforehand.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, perhaps you might consider [reblogging this very pretty gifset](http://bettydays.tumblr.com/post/120831294737/friday-im-in-love-steve-x-bucky-modern-au).
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://www.bettydays.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betty_days).


End file.
